


Callouses of Kindness

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Body Image, Character Study, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Sensuality, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-17 13:10:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16096328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: Glimpses into the lives of Lucis' favored sons, from the polished enamel of public opinion to the tender affections shared under the safety of the Shield. [prompt fills for #gladnoctweek2018]





	1. Cuddle to Survive

**Author's Note:**

> for Day 1: Cuddly Gladdy

“This is your fault.”

“This was _your_ idea.”

Noctis crossed his arms over his chest and turned his back on him. And that was the end of that blame train, however premature.

They did not like splitting up.

It was generally agreed upon, most times without ever saying a word, that the four of them were safest and strongest if they stayed together. The vast frontiers of Lucis were a peaceful deception, quiet and gray under the shroud of the latest storm. But they’d learned fast the photogenic vistas of the Caelum kingdom hosted more dangers outside the four points of Prompto’s digital frames, and none of them were willing to risk going out on their own – especially not after Insomnia.

And yet, in spite of this assumed-upon agreement that they stick together at all times, still Gladio found himself two men short and lost in the middle of a hurricane. All because King Noct said so.

“This was the best I could do, alright?” Noctis snapped, as much in response to Gladio’s silent irritation as to the projections of his own inner critic. “Someone had to stay with the car. After the last time… and we really need the gil from this hunt…”

Once Gladio took a second to stop and sit and see all the other options they could have chosen from, he did realize that there were no other routes to take that were as optimal as the plan they’d ultimately worked out together. Yes, they needed someone to watch the car, and they’d already agreed that no one should perform any task alone, so someone else had to have that person’s back. And they did need the gil if they were ever going to get themselves back into a parking lot where they didn’t need to take shifts making sure an airship didn’t abduct their Regalia again.

He wasn’t pissed at Noctis for making a hard judgment call… though he was a little pissed about him trying to make this _his_ fault… Getting stranded was only _half_ his fault.

He took a wrong turn, okay, fine, but in his defense, the downpour had been sudden, and he could barely see two inches in front of him. They were lucky he hadn’t walked them off a cliff. All things considered, he thought a crappy campfire underneath a bluff in the middle of the woods was better than the alternative.

But he was pissed that he couldn’t get them back to the haven and the car and Iggy’s cooking and Prompto’s comedy like he said he would. He was pissed they had to split up in the first place, pissed that the Empire made them more cautious; he was pissed, he was wet, he was hungry, and he was irritated, and…

“You’re cold.”

Gladio flicked up from his thoughts, magnetized to Noct’s inquisitive stare. So he’d deigned to look at him again, that was always a sign of truce between them. He looked closely, eyes bright between the plastered shades of hair clapped to his face.

“I’m fine,” Gladio grumbled, not sure what could have given Noctis that idea – he didn’t get cold, anyway.

Noctis gave him A Look, that bratty little look halfway between a scolded child and an exasperated parent. He dropped his arms from their stubborn barricade across his chest and crouched down next to Gladio by the fire.

“Don’t lie. Can’t have you getting sick on me because of your pride,” Noctis mumbled.

Gladio reached up to cuff him behind the ears for that one, but Noctis stole the gesture as an opening for him to fit against his side, yanking Gladio’s outstretched arm around his shoulders. Gladio opened his mouth to protest, but Noctis insisted.

“Fine. You’re not cold. But I am. So shut up and keep me warm.”

_You little brat._ Gladio could have handed him the whole usual spiel about humility and how he wasn’t going to inspire loyalty with an attitude like that, but if little more than a decade of trying to bash that into his skull with a training sword hadn’t done it by now, bitching through the brittle cold of a storm wasn’t likely to help him any more in that department.

And yeah… it was a little chilly after all.

It was a pitiful excuse for a fire, puttering against the grains of rain slicing under the overhang with the ever-changing angles of the wind. Gusts of mist clouded the horizon, a small sliver of sky peering from between the trees ahead of them. He’d hoped the treeline would help guard them from the worst of the elements, but he was still waiting for the feeling of comfort afforded them by the natural shield.

The body heat did help, in the long run. Once Noctis had stationed himself beneath Gladio as one half of the space heater between them, Gladio felt less anxious, less irritated, less like he could sluice from his skin with the next dredge of rain that snuck within their sanctuary.

They sat in silence, like they had so many times before like this. When they were both awful at articulating what it was that got under their skin, when words would make everything worse, touch had a habit of grounding them both. Even if it was under the disguise of survival instinct, Gladio knew what it was. A nudge of forgiveness, an apology, an entreaty for him to understand.

It took some time before he let himself sink back against the stone and loop both arms around Noct, welcoming him to shift and snuggle more intimately than the brusque wall of “not my fault” had forbidden him from.

“This really sucks, huh?” he said, by way of apology.

“Pretty sucky,” Noctis huffed, a warm cloud of air puffed against Gladio’s chest.

“Maybe Iggy will make us some soup when we get back.”

“Soup? Or Cup Noodles? Because I’m staying out here if it’s the latter.”

“You can stay here, then,” Gladio chuckled.

He felt warmer already.


	2. Skin Deep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He never used to hate the way his body looked. But then Gladio had to go and grow up on him. And all of a sudden, nothing about him was good enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for Day 2: Body Insecurity - I really enjoyed working on this one~

He never used to hate the way his body looked.

He never wanted to be one of those boys he always saw at school, planting their feet in front of locker room mirrors to take shirtless selfies like they were posing for a men’s health magazine. The gym never appealed to him, finding the monotony of all those “reps” so treacherously boring that he was likely to drift off and drop a weight on his skull. And it would just defeat the whole purpose of attaining the perfect body if he was too dead to use it.

He used to think that keeping that particular physique was too high maintenance for his tastes, that it was too much work just to maintain simple, ordinary human functions – like eating, like walking, even drinking water. Suddenly, they’d all transfigured into these convoluted strategies for sculpted perfection, not basic functions for one’s own survival. He didn’t get why boys his age had to complicate the most trivial things just to look “good.”

He used to think that he looked fine the way he was. He didn’t think _too_ much about it – when you’re the Prince, half the work in your image is done for you by your team of publicists. And people generally seemed to like him no matter what he looked like – he was always told his approval among the populace was adequate or high (he wasn’t sure what they did to figure that out, but as he got older he cared less about public perception of the Prince; he just wanted to be himself).

He thought he looked “fine” for the longest time. He liked his understated fashion, liked getting creative with his hair, he even liked the width of his waist, which so many people seemed to be the most worried about these days.

But then Gladio had to go and grow up on him. And all of a sudden, nothing about him was good enough.

It wasn’t anything Gladio said or did, of course it wasn’t. He never insulted him or belittled him or bullied him or made him feel like he was less than him – not that he would be allowed to, even if he really was that much of a jerk. But he wasn’t an asshole – contrary to how Noctis teased him. He never did anything to make Noctis feel inferior… Not deliberately.

Logically, Noctis knew it wasn’t his fault. He knew that this was all a part of growing up as Shield to the King. Gladio was expected to uphold a certain physical discipline, he needed to follow a strict regime to maintain the body necessary to protect the king in the best way he was physically capable of. Noctis had spotted him through his routine for years. He’d seen him without his shirt on for plenty more than that.

He wasn’t sure what changed, or when, but all of a sudden, instead of seeing the body that was sworn to protect him, all Noctis saw was the man he was never going to be.

He saw the strong, straight legs that the Scourge had crippled him from ever having. He would always stand crooked, always walk uneven, always hurt where no one else did just by standing up.

He saw the varnished skin that he couldn’t make the effort to achieve for himself, always sleeping too late for the sunlight some days because the nightmares of his childhood roused him too often in the night.

He saw the perfect, pristine artistry of the ink on Gladio’s back that would be made ugly if it was on his, split by the rough, sickle curve of the scars which sometimes made something as simple as just sitting uncomfortable.

It wasn’t Gladio’s fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was just him who was unlucky, him who was destined to be imperfect when the rest of his friends grew into these enviable knights in fashionable blacks and gilded Crownsguard badges.

They were all so much stronger than him. He envied and he coveted them for that. Especially Gladio.

“And here I was worried you didn’t think enough,” Gladio teased one night, when Noctis was lost in thought and not even making out on his couch could seem to help him focus. “Turns out you think a little _too_ much, Noct.”

“Is there really such a thing when you’re destined to be king?” Noctis snorted, a little more scornfully than he’d meant to release out loud.

“Overthinking leads to obsessing. And I think you have a great-great-something-or-other who can attest to how well that worked out for him.”

He knew that he was just trying to be funny, trying to distract him from whatever was bothering him, but gods, as if he needed something else to compare himself to right now. As if he needed his long dead ancestors reminding him what he had to live up to in the grand scheme of things, let alone the small scheme of his own physicality.

Gladio’s hands flexed on his thighs, Noct perched in his lap like habit had started to dictate for the both of them since they’d crossed the line from brothers in arms to lovers in bed. “Just tell me what’s on your mind, Noct. The sooner you get it off your chest, the sooner I can show you mine.”

Noctis made a gagging sound at the suggestive curl of Gladio’s brow. But the easy flirting between them now made him feel safe enough to confess just a fraction of what he was thinking. If he told him all of it, well, they’d never get to the end of what they’d started on this couch tonight. Besides that, he didn’t think he had the strength for all of it in one go.

“I just, um…” Noctis picked at the frayed ends of Gladio’s T-shirt, staring wistfully at the way the fabric delved into the grooves of muscle underneath. “It’s stupid.”

“Of course it is. You’re a dummy.”

He bumped his knuckles under Noct’s chin to let him know it was meant in kindness. Which, of course, Noctis knew. For all that he pretended to be rough and gruff, Gladio was kind.

“I just don’t want you to be disappointed in, um, me.”

He said it in a rush, feeling his face fire up the second the last word collapsed off his tongue. As if he needed another reason to feel ashamed for how much he envied him without stuttering and blushing like a damn child.

“Wouldn’t worry about that,” Gladio reassured him. “Don’t think we would have gotten this far if I wasn’t at least slightly attracted to you.”

He indicated their position, raking a look up and down between them. It made Noctis smile, which was becoming easier and easier for Gladio to do the more moments they stole from the expectations of the Crown like this.

“Fine, you’re a little scrawny,” Gladio admitted when Noctis didn’t look convinced. “Maybe if you ate your vegetables, you wouldn’t have that problem.” Noctis gave him a look, and Gladio conceded to be more serious. “You’re fine the way you are, Noct. You’re good enough for me, and you should know I have extremely high standards, being a high-profile Shield and everything.”

Noctis snorted. “You? Standards? Please.”

“Well, you can just go get laid somewhere else tonight, then.”

Noctis leaned down and kissed him to convince him against that idea.

His insecurities went further beneath than skin-deep. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to think up the words to describe just how small he felt in Gladio’s shadow. But he supposed if he was any bigger, he wouldn’t fit within the safety of that outline. And he wanted to feel safe with him. Gladio had never given him any reason not to.

Looking a different way wasn’t going to change that. So he shouldn’t go changing, either.


	3. Threads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noctis has a problem. It’s name is Gladio and it looks way too good in a royal suit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for Day 3: Formal King/Shield

Oh, okay, well, _this_ was just not fair.

As if it wasn’t hard enough wrangling himself into his own “costume” – “ _It’s a uniform, Noct. A representation of the Crown and yourself in its regards. A costume implies that you’re not what you say you are,”_ Ignis always corrected him (because he had to and because there were always other ears listening for him to say the _right_ things, not necessarily because he really believed in what he said).

It had been hard enough to accept the way he looked in the mirror for these private functions, putting on his disguise – his _uniform_ – and playing the part of the Prince who never looked anything like him. There was so much he had to remember to say and do, names and faces and variables that the Prince was expected to take an interest in if he was ever to succeed where his father had failed. He had to remember how to eat – what fork goes with what dish – how to stand and move to best advertise the designer of his suit for the evening.

He thought he was getting better at it all with practice, but there was so much to remember _without_ being distracted.

And _oh boy_ … was he distracted.

Noctis sighed, considering which avenue would be least embarrassing to him: fleeing the event with some sort of bowel irritation excuse, or enduring it like a drunk slurring his words over how stupidly attractive his boyfriend looked in formal attire.

For as long as Noctis had realized he was attracted to boys, he’d developed two distinct categories of attractiveness to indulge himself with.

There was rugged handsomeness – the kind of handsomeness exaggerated by the unorganized, the disheveled, the faults in the framework: loose and open clothes, tatters, tattoos and cigarette burns and glass shard scars (if his fantasies were feeling extreme), hands rough with whatever work made hands rough – grinding at bolts under motorcyles, chopping wood for secluded cabins, back alley brawls under neon signs; bloody lips, the musky scent of sweat, hair in the eyes… He liked that.

He also liked elegant handsomeness, defined by the exact opposite. He could appreciate a guy that kept himself together – a tailored suit, the trims and trappings of expensive fabric for the sake of subtle demure, no detail gone unpolished, the accents of every wrinkle a strategy to entice the eye from the top of a wine glass. Silver and gold and smooth shoulders, controlled smiles, full of secrets and promises to share them for a fair trade, a slice of danger in the safety of all those straight lines… He liked that, too.

But in all his experience – though, granted, being the sheltered prince made it fairly limited – nor in all of his fantasies, he’d never seen the two genres married together into one whole package. Which made total sense to him! The universe needed to have a balance. It needed to show him at least a _little_ bit of mercy. That much attractiveness in a single unit would just be too much. Too perfect. He already had his two schools of attractiveness to satisfy him, crossing the beams would be far too dangerous…

Well. Gladio had never shied away from danger. Neither had Noct, for that matter.

And this was definitely dangerous, being trapped in a room full of a hundred people, feeling the collar of his suit jacket sticking to the back of his neck where half the heat in his blood was trying to escape him. Because Astrals damn him, Gladio looked good in that royal suit.

He’d classified Gladio under the “ruggedly handsome” tree – big, broad, rough and gruff, hot-blooded, hot-tempered, devil-may-care; a little on the wilder side of what was deemed “right” for him, but still temperate, patient when it mattered, easy to spend time with, to tease that hard exterior without ever getting hurt on it.

But here he was now, closed inside the esteemed garb passed down among the King’s Shields, velvet black with strings of gold, long, thick hair tamed into a soft swathe of midnight black cascading down into the high, gilded collar. All the raw power and rough edges Noctis had come to be so familiar with, buffed out and carefully concealed beneath his refinery – not gone for good, the promise of all he was capable of still hummed with energy underneath the tassels.

The two worlds met so perfectly in Gladio. Noct wasn’t sure why he hadn’t considered it before. Why he had drawn a line and divided the two onto separate sides. It had just seemed to incongruous to put them both together, such a contradiction that it couldn’t possibly serve to complement.

But Gladio made it work. He combined danger and decorum in one neat package of sable and silk. And it was having a mortifying effect on Noct’s attention.

He couldn’t seem to carry a conversation with any of the strangers he’d been instructed to rub elbows with for the evening. His gaze was constantly drawn to the shadow his Shield cut through the crowd. His thoughts were always distracted with how he’d managed to encompass every single level of attractiveness Noctis ever dreamed about having for himself.

And he knew it, too, gods damn him!

He saw the slick curl of Gladio’s smirk through the crowd, bit his lip on the catch of his golden stare between the blurring bodies surrounding him. He knew the effect he was having on Noctis. He wondered if he planned it that way. He wondered if he _knew_ what he thought about when he was wistful and maybe more than a little bit horny. He did tell him once that, as his Shield, sometimes he would have to think for him. Noctis never thought that would translate to _this._

“Does all your ogling mean you want to dance?”

At some point the evening – somehow, he’d managed to survive without making a _total_ fool of himself – Gladio had joined him at the edges of the throng, at strategically orchestrated lull in the activities which allowed for the hosting royals to be absent without being scoffed at for abandoning their own party.

Noctis gulped down the last of his champagne with the rest of his patience. He grabbed Gladio by the arm – silk, definitely silk, so soft around the hard muscle he could feel underneath, _what the hell_ , how did he _do_ that? – and he looked for the nearest exit from the ballroom dragging Gladio along as subtly as his waning sobriety would let him.

“Dancing is the last thing I want to do with you right now.”


	4. Concessions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noct has good days and bad. On the bad ones, he always thinks it’s so much worse. Luckily, Gladio thinks pretty clearly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a late Day Four: Chronic Pain

“I’m fine.”

“Uh huh.”

“I’m _fine._ ”

“Uh _huh_.”

Noctis grit his teeth and stood his ground, balling his hands into fists to make himself two anchors to moor on. To press down towards the floor as if he could raise himself up from the leaden weights of his knuckles and make himself taller. To reach Gladio’s glare on the same field of view without standing on his toes like a toddler.

Force of will did not change the fickleness of his own genetics though. Nor did mentally projecting a few more inches on his Shield make him taller in actuality. Fine, whatever, just because he was taller than him didn’t make him the authority on everything. Let alone something that was entirely _Noct’s_ responsibility, something that _no one_ , not even his Shield – no matter what all the damn, dusty textbooks seemed to say to the contrary about the King’s Shield being honed to know their lords’ minds better than even they themselves did – could know better than Noctis did.

“I _know_ that I’m fine,” Noctis insisted, heat rising in his chest the more Gladio tried to convince him that he wasn’t. “I wouldn’t have bothered to show up if I wasn’t.”

“Sure you would have. You’re too stubborn to stay home when you need to.”

Did he even _know_ him? What exactly about the past half of their lives together had given Gladio any indication that Noctis _wouldn’t_ stay in bed, even if he _didn’t_ have an excuse? He’d proven to him, time and time again, that he would much rather sleep in than get up and drag his ass to training. He’d been just as late this morning as he was to any of their sessions. What did it matter if he had a reason or not? It didn’t change the curriculum of the lesson, didn’t change his usual limitations, it didn’t make him _weak_ …

So what? He got sore a little bit faster than normal, whatever, he could deal with it. So his leg burned a little angrier than usual, big deal, he could fight through it. It was like Gladio and Cor and Clarus and all of his teachers had been telling him all these years: when it came down to a _real_ fight, his opponent wouldn’t stop to pity him because of a few aches and pains.

Ever since the attack on the road, ever since the Marilith and the coma and the wheelchair and Tenebrae, every step he took was a trial. The Scourge ran deep, leaving phantoms of agony against his bones that the Oracle hadn’t had time to heal before the Empire came. It wasn’t deadly – she’d seen to that much before they ran out of time – but it was still stubborn. It still picked days where it lashed out harder than others, it still left a perpetual ache where the blade had struck true.

He’d learned to live with it, he would learn to fight with it, too.

Gladio couldn’t just decide _for him_ what he could and could not do within the realm of his own disability. He could train, he would prove it, he would make it through this session to the end, he wouldn’t quit just because his body said he should. It was just pain. He’d been in pain all his life. One bad day didn’t have to change that…

Gladio’s hand fell heavy on his shoulder. It felt heavier today, such a simple gesture, a touch he’d offered him a thousand times over, and on days like this it felt like an anvil cleaving through his arm. _Damnit._

“I know _you’re_ fine,” Gladio said, softer than the dismissive edge he’d casting down on Noct. “But _this_ isn’t.”

His hand slid down along the front of Noct’s chest, landing in the groove of his hip, and the weight that Noctis couldn’t bear just a moment ago was deliberately lifted, hovering just over the fabric of his shirt without pressing down on the scar tissue concealed underneath.

“It’s just training, Noct,” Gladio reasoned, sighing through his nose like a lazing garula. “One day missed isn’t one day killed.”

“You don’t seriously believe that,” Noctis said, laughing bitterly as he recalled the myriad of times Gladio had scolded him with exactly the opposite.

Still, the concern in his eyes was a nice change from the glare of “you’re too weak to do this” to a look of “you could do this, but you don’t have to.” Noctis huffed out a sigh, wincing when the slight drop of his shoulders weighed on the bunch of broken nerves that hurt the most in his leg. He _wanted_ to do this, he wanted to not have these days, learn to be good enough that the pain was only ever an afterthought, not at the center of his attention.

“We can’t have you hurting yourself before an MT hurts you,” Gladio said, the hard frown chiseled into his mouth lifting slightly. “Don’t want to be doing their work for them, right?”

“Yeah, right,” Noctis snorted. “Wouldn’t want to take away all their fun tearing me to pieces.”

“Or mine, taking them apart and tossing you off my sword in revenge.”

Noctis smiled even though he didn’t want to. Even though he wanted to be mad at himself for making Gladio stop the session – he’d never really been mad at Gladio, much as he tried to be. He closed his eyes and sighed, all the anger uncoiling from his fists in defeat.

“Have to choose our battles, right?” he muttered, taking yet another lesson to heart.

“Where we can.” Gladio nodded, guiding the palm of his hand around Noct’s back, careful and intimate and knowing where to avoid so he didn’t hurt him worse. “This is one of those times.”

A strong warrior was a wise warrior, and a wise warrior knew that there would be no fighting tomorrow if he died today. It was safer not to risk an accident, not to wrongly anticipate the flares of pain and lose his grip on the hilt of his sword to fumble to his knees.

It was always going to be frustrating. He was always going to hate the bad days. He was always going to feel like he could be better than he was on those days. He didn’t want to disappoint anyone, least of all Gladio…

But it was nice to have a companion walking him back to the barracks with a smile instead of a scowl. With a gentle touch and muttered innuendos of how he would take care of him. It took down his anger, slowly undid the fastenings of his stubbornness clamping down on the pain.

They made the most of it. And tomorrow, maybe he would be better than he was today. Resting didn’t make him weak. He had to remember that.

And he had to remember that, as much as Gladio enjoyed tossing his ass across the dust in the training room, he was just as happy to hold him on his couch and tell him how stupid he was for not letting him take care of him when he needed it.


	5. For Simplicity's Sake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having a heart with strings tethered to Noct should not be nearly as complicated as Gladio makes it out to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for Day 5, duty versus desire

A stranger once told him that there was “a fine line between duty and desire.” Another bodyguard for a foreign dignitary visiting Insomnia, confiding in a fellow operative of royal security under an allotted amount of party booze. All the while smiling in fondness at their charge across the room.

Gladio was a little younger then, just stepping out into the social circles his father expected him to inherit and impress under the family name. He was just growing into his duty as the Prince’s Shield, just fully grasped the expectations involved, settled into the role after an adolescence of constant questions and uncertainty.

He’d shrugged it off, never saw the guy again, never really thought about him or his quarter-of-the-way tipsy musings from one guardian to the other and the threats of attachment that tangled into the task.

Until he and Noct passed the threshold of adulthood together, and Noctis started to change.

Maybe it wasn’t Noctis that was changing at all. Maybe it was Gladio. Maybe it was some chemical, combination of things that made him tilt his head and wonder about the new style of Noct’s hair, or the slim cut of his torso, or the wild breathlessness that reached his eyes at the end of a successful spar.

Something must have changed.

Though Noctis didn’t look any different than every day he’d ever seen him – sure, he was doing his hair differently, his clothes were getting slightly more stylish. So it must have been Gladio that did the changing. Something in his head that he couldn’t identify. Some switch with a glitch that was making him see things differently.

Because whereas all these little things that had just been so normal and inconsequential to him in the past, were suddenly so much sharper in their detailing.

Suddenly, he noticed that Noct’s hair wasn’t just black. In certain shifts of light it could look almost blue, metallic when wet with sweat from a hard work-out, silver-streaked under the lights of the city when they went out for a bite after a late session.

He noticed that his body wasn’t exactly “scrawny” as he so often teased. Noct was athletic, wiry, skin smoothed by the electric snap of the warp, sluicing through that strange little pocket of space-time as sharp as any blade he came out with in a shower of sparks. He was graceful, twisting through the air and spinning through magic showers to dance clear of a strike.

He noticed the sound of his laughter when he perfected a certain move, how it lilted like gull-song on the lakes and rivers they sometimes shared fishing. How his eyes got as big and blue as a kitten’s at dinner, the delight almost as infectious as to be distracting; distracting him from keeping his smile from turning too fond, from keeping the clapped hand on Noct’s shoulder from lingering too long.

It didn’t take him long to figure out his feelings. He wasn’t one of those people that drove themselves crazy with denial. He had a question – “what am I feeling?” – he needed an answer – “I have feelings for Noct.” He didn’t debate it with himself, it didn’t take rocket science for him to come to that conclusion. Now, he just needed to decide what to do about it. And for some reason, that was the hardest part.

Which took him by surprise, because usually action was his forte.

Gladio wasn’t inundated by a lack of social bravery. If he wanted something, he went out and he asked for it. He had no issue with initiative, with getting a straight answer, whether it was dating or not. He didn’t do the mind games, the emotional hula-hoops of romance. He was clear with what he wanted out of anything in life, and he gravitated towards people who felt the same.

But when it came to this new feeling about Noctis…

As much as he treated Noctis as best he could like anyone else, treated him like he was normal, like the Crown didn’t matter – and after those first few years of tripping over each to get along, the Crown really did cease to matter – the bottom line was that Noctis _wasn’t_ anyone else.

He wasn’t a pretty stranger Gladio got to flirt with at a diner, not a mutually gratifying hook-up from a night club, not someone he could take out to dinner or invite to his new place away from the Amicitia house, or make-out with in semi-public places without media scrutiny.

Suddenly, the Crown that had been all but invisible to Gladio grew a thicker outline, dropped a darker shadow than it ever had before. He’d never doubted his own feelings so much before, and it caught him by surprise. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like these new feelings changing the way he saw Noctis – as more of a Prince when he finally felt like he wanted him as something more.

“You doing okay there, big guy?”

It was such a simple question. He asked him it almost all the time. Sometimes in concern, mostly in jest, teasing him for a tiny scratch or a little bump or a harmless sweep into the dust, goading him into the rest of the match.

Today – and most days since his romantic epiphany – it felt so much more complicated. Because he really wasn’t sure if how he felt was “okay.”

“Fine. Just thinking.”

Noctis gave him a look that said, “You? Thinking?” and earned a cuff behind the ear for it. Made him hiss in false agony and made Gladio smile.

He didn’t want to complicate this. This was simple and good and he loved it as much as he would love Noct if they were friends _and_ more. It was the “more” part that felt like it couldn’t be so simple. It felt like if he was as bold with his heart this time as he always was, he would break it.

“Do you want to go think over some pizza?”

It didn’t help him that Noct was asking him out for food more and more often. Most times in the past, they just closed up the barracks and walked to dinner without ever asking each other where they were going. It was just a necessity of their daily lives.

But now, Noct was asking. Like a guy asking another guy “out” to dinner. And sometimes Gladio feared he was reading too much into it, and other times, he was sure that he was right.

“Food sounds good. Can’t think on empty stomach.”

Noct’s face brightened, and he pulled Gladio to his feet by the elbow. Whatever this was, the easiest way for Gladio to make it simple for himself was that wherever the King wanted him to go, his Shield was happy to follow.


	6. Celebrity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even being royalty, Noctis still isn’t used to celebrity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for Day 6: Bodyguard

“Gladio… I don’t think we’re in the Citadel anymore.”

“Seriously? How long have you been asleep?”

Noctis wasn’t entirely certain he’d ever woken up. Because this was definitely a nightmare.

Insomnia was a big, _big_ city. Noctis always forgot just how colossal his capital really was until he grazed the decorative maps scattered throughout the Citadel on the way to his monthly appearances with his father’s Council.

The city was half as big as the whole kingdom, a massive star fallen atop the sea between greater Lucis and Galahd. It was almost like a country in-and-of itself, divided by districts like the regions beyond the Wall, each one distinguished from the other by its unique function to serve the whole of Insomnia.

Noctis had grown up in the royal district, rarely ever straying more than a hundred miles from the base of the Citadel and the broad shadow it cast out to claim the center of the city. Within that radius, residents of the royal district were as accustomed to the sight of pivotal political figures as they were the sight of commercial coffee shops on every street corner. Noctis was free to wander mostly unmolested, recognized but never raided by the celebrity-starved strangers of the outer districts.

So the screaming throng roiling outside the car windows now came as somewhat of a shock.

“Do we have the wrong place?” Noctis asked, nervously leaning away from the tinted glass to glance up at the driver’s GPS. “This looks more like a YUNA concert or something…”

“Nope. All here for you, Prince Charming. That’s your adoring public out there.”

He didn’t know he had an “adoring public.” Sure, he knew he wasn’t universally despised or anything – his security detail would be a hell of a lot stricter (resentment and danger came hand-in-knife; Gladio knew that better than anyone). Noctis knew that – for some odd reason – the people he was destined to look after when he inherited the throne seemed to like him. He got smiles from strangers on the street, the occasional awkward selfie for posterity (it was getting less awkward since practicing with Prompto’s photography experiments), and he generally didn’t feel like every day had to be spent looking over his shoulder for the oncoming charge of a radical dissenter to the Crown.

But he had a feeling that was all due in part to the fact that he tried to stay out of the spotlight as much as his position would allow. He didn’t blast his opinions across social media like he was the leading authority on every individual person’s problems in the world, he didn’t attend high profile parties that weren’t hosted under the comfortable guidelines of the Citadel, he didn’t put his face to too many causes – just his name on quiet checks to his favorite charities. He didn’t put himself out there for people to criticize. He didn’t give people a reason to hate him, but consequently, he didn’t really give them a reason to love him, either.

_Definitely_ not this much.

“Don’t suppose there’s, um, a back way?”

He wasn’t sure who he was asking, but he knew he wasn’t going to get an answer. The engine was running, the cameras were flashing, the people were cheering, all for him to open the door and walk up whatever red carpet they’d rolled out for him.

“Afraid they’ll film your bad side?” Gladio teased.

He put his hand on the door – he would step out first, scope the crowd, judge for any dangers before signaling it was safe – and Noct’s heart jumped up into his throat. Yes, he was definitely afraid, but not of the cameras.

He’d never liked crowds – an incongruous fear for someone living in the busiest city in the world, but just because he was born here never meant he was particularly in love with city life. He wasn’t a social animal, disinclined to smile for the blinding bulbs of light just barely muted on the other side of the glass. He wasn’t prepared for the groping fingers of a hundred strangers clawing to get over the velvet ropes to see him. He wasn’t ready for the noise, the rush, the expectation that he enjoy the rabid sea of praise these people he’d never met offered him.

Gladio dropped his hand from the door, the easy teasing of his smile hardening to a firmer line of concern. Just like Noctis was used to a certain balance of publicity and privacy, Gladio was used to the switch-click change in his charge from laconic indifference to brimstone panic.

“I thought I was just supposed to cut a ribbon and be done,” Noctis said in response to the questing look on Gladio’s face. “This was just supposed to be a little aquarium opening, why are they acting like I’m about to sign the Peace Accords?”

The fishing district was so far removed from Noct’s home in the royal district. He’d only taken an interest in the proposal Ignis passed to him because the request had read so humbly and unassuming. He’d been expecting a quiet little ceremony with like-minded aquatic enthusiasts. Not a clamoring parade of people hoping to rub his arm to brag to their friends that they’d touched “greatness.”

He didn’t want anybody touching him. But he didn’t flinch away from the tender spooling of Gladio’s fingers around his elbow.

“You’ll be fine, Noct. I’ve got you.”

Noctis forced himself to look away from the flashbulb phantoms beckoning him from beyond the glass. The warm amber light in Gladio’s gaze was much less harsh on his eyes. And in it, he felt that cold coil of fear slowly start to melt down and simmer.

Gladio would keep him safe. He always did. If Gladio wasn’t worried about it, he didn’t need to be, either. His Shield was his reason when it abandoned Noct in the face of great peril. And while he knew that an excited crowd begging for his attention was hardly a world-ending catastrophe, it was nice not to feel like he was going it alone. That his fear wasn’t trivialized and considered inconsequential to the greater image of the aquarium.

No matter how stupid or small he felt, Gladio held up his shoulders for him to stand on.

“Okay,” Noctis said, making himself smile for the masses and hooking his arm through Gladio’s like the strap of a shield to ward off the world. “Let’s make this quick and painless.”

“You got it.”


	7. Medical Compensation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad bruises earn good benefits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the last (and late) day of #gladnoctweek, Day 7: Sick/Injury

“Wasn’t – geurgh! – prepared for you to hit that hard.”

“Wasn’t really prepared for you to just stand there and take it,” Noctis grumbled.

Gladio glared at the dust in front of him, pockmarked with boot-prints and sword-sweeps and sweat-drops. He knew that the jab was intended to distract him from the direction of his anger – spearing inward, digging deep past the bruising on his skin to cut open the ego underneath. But he was still too annoyed with himself to trade well-intentioned barbs with Noctis without risking them turning ill.

He bit down on another hiss of pain as Noctis pressed against his arm, muttering an apology for any discomfort the basics of first aid demanded. It was a small price to pay – and the least of what he deserved – for his own arrogance.

He’d goaded Noctis into the attack, the typical bluster and bravado of a mock battle. And he’d underestimated Noctis today, a mistake he didn’t often make, whether they were walking through the simulations of the training rooms, or the narrow streets of Insomnia after dark. It was an occasional chink in his armor that he forgot to buff out some days – he woke up wrong, didn’t get enough sleep, didn’t get enough coffee, had something on his mind, forgot to shower or something; trivial, daily distractions that he was supposed to be above as the Prince’s Shield.

“You really hit like a truck when you want to,” Gladio mumbled to distract himself from the pain.

“And you really fall like a brick when I do.”

His pride hurt more than the hit, or the fall from it. It was nothing serious, nothing warranting the mad scramble for an emergency potion from the reserve. There was a rule for training that Cor had implemented in an effort to consolidate the teachings of self-defense with the teachings of first aid. They couldn’t always count on the King’s magic to protect them out in the field, to coddle them over every little bump and bruise.

Potions were for fatal injuries, for last resorts, and in training, they were for emergency accidents, which were few and far between under the strict safety regulations the Crownsguard put in place. Even in the Prince’s private lessons. _Especially_ in the Prince’s private lessons.

It was an ugly, blooming bruise, purple bleeding to yellow and edged in green. It looked like one of Iris’s finger paintings that Gladio still kept from when she was five – though it didn’t impart the same warm, fuzzy feelings in his chest as a childhood art experiment.

He’d misjudged Noct’s speed, mis-timed the rise of his sword to block, and earned a barrelful of blunted practice sword and warp velocity pounded into the juncture where his arm met his chest for his error. In hindsight, it would have been a winning hit if it was implemented in actual combat – Noctis would have taken a MTs arm clean off with a real sword. Later, when he wasn’t so pissed at himself, Gladio would look at it as a mark of praise for his partner, rather than a mark of shame for himself.

“You sure that I’m doing this right?”

“Just as sure as I was the first five times you asked me.”

Noctis glared at him, and Gladio saw his fingers flex like he wanted to punch him before remembering what he was doing. Noctis bit his tongue and kept the blow to himself, resuming his work on reinforcing the bandages.

The quiet stung with bitterness on both sides, each of them blaming themselves for the injury. Noctis wasn’t unlike Gladio’s own reflection during times like these. Not the one he showed to the Citadel – not the proud, spitting, stalwart image of his father in his youth, groomed in ink and scars to take up the Shield that Clarus would one day retire.

No, instead he saw the scrappy kid he couldn’t completely shake from his adolescence – a doubtful, critical, aggravated young man, not yet blooded by his duty to the Crown, and never feeling like he would be ready to take up the Shield’s mantle. He saw every time he second-guessed himself, every shadow of self-recrimination that shrunk down his worthiness to a timeline of triumphs he would never succeed.

“Pretty sure you owed me this,” Gladio sighed, breathing his frustrations out through his nose. “You never got me back for the last bruise I gave you.”

“If I wanted payback, I should have left you one more embarrassing than mine,” Noctis snorted. “This is a badass battle-scar, mine was…”

“A butt bruise.”

Noctis did punch him that time, knuckling lightly against the stiff bandages keeping Gladio’s arm from caving in on the bruising. It shouldn’t have been nearly as funny as it was, and it definitely wasn’t even remotely amusing for Noctis, the one who had to deal with figuring out how to sit without yelping over the soreness. It wasn’t even the result of a more lecherous incident like all manner of Gladio’s trashy romance novels would have suggested to the contrary. It had been an innocent accident of training, like it always was, getting knocked down, quite literally, on his butt and landing just a tad bit too hard one day.

“I think you more than made up for that one,” Noctis intoned, the worried frown between his brows lifting with the smirk of his lips.

Gladio let himself smile back, recalling the week-long tenderness of a sore Noctis and figuring out a work-around, both on and off the training field. He nodded down to his arm and Noct’s hands all bound up in the bandages. “How are you going to match me, to make up for this?”

“I’ll just have to get creative.”

Gladio was expecting an abrupt tightening of the bandages to punctuate his point, but Noctis gently folded the last knot to secure the splinting before running a delicate hand over his work. He checked for faults in the application, tested for discomfort, and admired the stark white gauze against the dark, bronzed skin he’d so boldly destroyed. Gladio was surprised again – and maybe a little bit touched – when Noctis craned his head down to rest a kiss above the bandaged bruises, warming the harsh throbbing hummed beneath the gauze.

“Promise I won’t break you any worse than this,” Noctis said, the soft curve of his lips vowing that and more to make up for it.

Gladio smiled, claiming the first bit of his medical compensation package with a rough kiss to his lips. Whereas he might have doubted his effectiveness in combat when accidents like this so rarely happened, one thing Gladio never doubted was how Noctis would make it all feel worth it.


End file.
